Something Changed

Well, I made it five days. I think I better not "officially" close down the blog anymore.

I'm writing this from McNairy Regional Hospital in Selmer. Apparently, the stretching that I pictured in the last post was not going to do the job. It turns out that the calf problem is a blood clot, perhaps two. I have a clot behind the knee, and then I either have another in the hamstring or the clot runs up into the hamstring as well.

Clots make medical professionals nervous. The doctor told me not to stop for lunch but to go straight to the hospital, get admitted, and get the first dose of Lovenox. Of course, that was almost two hours ago. "Hurry up and wait" applies just as much in the hospital setting as it does in the military.

So here I am praying that we won't be sent home with any Lovenox. Here in the hospital, they administer it by IV (I think). At home, it's a shot to the stomach that is occasionally terribly painful. Back in February I was getting insulin every day because I was being fed intravenously. Those shots were given to the stomach, too, but they didn't burn like the Lovenox shots. I much prefer the Coumadin pills.

Inserted note: no such luck. I got the Lovenox shot in the stomach. It didn't hurt at all when administered, but five minutes later it started burning. Fortunately, it was pretty mild and only lasted 10 or 15 minutes. I hate Lovenox shots. The IV insertion hurt a lot worse because it's a much bigger needle, but that doesn't bother me. It's those stomach shots that make me tense up and flinch.

Big Prayer Request

I was also notified by email that a lady who got a marrow transplant 4 days after me has relapsed.

I'm capable of despairing like anyone else, and her story hits really close to home. She has a leukemia they called biphenotypic, which means it's like both ALL and AML. Mine is not biphenotypic, but undifferentiated. That means, I believe, that they were able to determine that she had both lymphocytic and myeloid cells go bad. My cells went bad so early in their development that they were unable to determine whether mine were lymphoid or myeloid. However, I had symptoms of both ALL and AML, like she did.

She got a fully ablative transplant with chemo and radiation just as I did and just 4 days after.

Her picture on her blog looks familiar to me, though I know I never officially met her. Even if I had met her, she would have been bald like me.

When I got the email, I cried like she was my best friend and I was brokenhearted. That is very much not my typical reaction to bad news. (I'm much more likely to cry at good news.)

When I have unusual emotional reactions, I always look to God. Our Father will let us feel his feelings sometimes. It helps us understand him in whatever small way we can and allows us to touch the immense depths of his love.

So let me go out on a limb again and say that I think God is going to show his great power in Jennifer, and that this relapse is going to be an opportunity for him to be glorified. I have no idea how this could turn into a good thing, but I predict it will because God cares about this situation.